


Intermezzo

by thesuperG



Series: A Second Chance [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 22:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13961502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesuperG/pseuds/thesuperG
Summary: Ten years later Oliver returns to Italy.





	Intermezzo

**Author's Note:**

> I adore the book, but this is mostly movie-verse in my head. 
> 
> First time I've written in a long time, so forgive the rustiness.

The nostalgia hit me harder than I was expecting when I heard the familiar crunch of gravel under the car tires as I was readying the upstairs bedroom and suddenly I could almost see Marzia lying across my bed as I tossed my shirts into a basket. Being the coward I was I didn’t run down but went to the window as I had done that summer and peeked down to the driveway where my mum and dad were running out to meet him.

That was where the similarities ended, however, because when Oliver stepped out of the car he immediately reached back in to pull his younger son into his arms, followed quickly by a five year old boy who batted his father’s hand away to climb out by himself. My breath caught at the scene and a wave of sadness washed over me. God, I couldn’t believe he was doing this all alone.

“Oliver!” my dad cried, skipping toward them with a goofy youthfulness he still managed to conjure up when excited.

“Oliver Oliver Oliver, welcome back to Italy! And who are these fine young gentlemen?”

Oliver embraced my father with one arm, holding a shy toddler who was eying my dad warily in the other.

I was too far to hear Oliver’s hellos to dad, but he seemed to smile through the bone deep exhaustion which I could sense from my perch two stories up, going in for a second hug after a brief exchange and squeezing my father’s shoulder affectionately. I always forgot how much they had connected that summer, only focusing on my own feelings and desires for Oliver. I liked seeing the proof that they had kept in touch over the years as well although my father and I never openly discussed it.

My mother, strolling out with more grace, got her turn to hug and kiss Oliver before softly stroking the boy’s head and speaking softly to him. He burrowed into Oliver’s neck, chubby hand grabbing his dad’s shirt for reassurance, but smiled a little at mum. No one didn’t love my mother.

The older boy, Adam I reminded myself, was much more outgoing and was already answering my father’s questions about the trip, making wild gestures about planes and explaining with wide eyes that they’d been able to see “tiny little cars and houses” from the plane windows. My dad was crouched down next to him and looked suitably impressed at all the right moments.

I took a shaky breath and turned away from the window. Time to grow a pair, Elio.

I knew my father had mentioned that I would be visiting as well when he had invited Oliver (the phone call had shocked all of us out of our lazy summer stupor of the last few weeks) but Oliver still looked stunned when I appeared in the doorway as they were all making their way toward the house, and I knew I probably looked just the same. Seeing him in person felt bizarrely dreamlike, a manifestation of all the reunion fantasies I’d had over our many years apart.

“Welcome home,” I murmured, unable to do much more than stare. Ten years and he still took my breath away.

He just stared right back for what seemed like an eternity, before blinking once and stepping toward me to envelop me in a gentle one-armed hug.

“Elio,” he whispered into my hair as he pressed me close to him. I could feel his unsteady breathing against my chest so I just squeezed him harder and smoothed my hand across his back, resisting the urge to get on my tiptoes and press my face into his neck and inhale. I liked to think I had gained some level of self-control since he’d last seen me.

Eventually he pulled back and his eyes greedily raked over my face, taking in every change, every new laugh line, and I did the same. Just as the atmosphere was about to get too charged I felt a tiny hand curiously pull one of my curls and giggle happily as it bounced back into place. The moment broke and we both huffed out soft laughs.

“Sam, sweetheart, this is daddy’s friend Elio, can you say hi?”

Sam (I had never quite summoned the courage to ask but I knew with absolute certainty that Sam had just met his namesake moments earlier) waved a chubby hand at me as he reached for my hair again, muttering something that sounded vaguely like “ey-oh” and then exclaiming in frustration as Oliver stopped his wandering hand with a tsk.

“No grabbing.”

I smiled up at Sam, who had Oliver’s blond hair and curious eyes, and bopped him on the nose which earned me a giggle.

My mother shuffled us inside as Anchise and dad brought in the suitcases. Once we got them settled in, the boys in my room and Oliver in the side room that had served as mine last time he was here, all three of them took a much needed rest.

My mother got to work helping get dinner ready and my dad gave me a quick peck on the cheek, probably reading every confused emotion on my face, and left for his study.

I stood in the living room for a moment, feeling totally at a loss. So I did what seventeen year old Elio would have, and grabbed my bike from its perch against the house and rode to my spot to think.

***

To say I’d been pining for Oliver since that summer would be mostly a lie. Those months after he left I’d been devastated, and the Hanukkah phone call had knocked me back down right as I’d begun to feel okay again, but I took my dad’s words to heart and tried to channel my stages of grief into passion. The fairytale nature of that summer at the villa had also allowed my real life back in Boston to be separated from the visceral pain of losing Oliver.

Paris had been the city of my college years, full of late nights and tipsy wanderings with friends in between hours of practicing in my tiny apartment with neighbors who did not appreciate having a pianist next door. The other students at the Conservatoire became lifelong friends, and I grew into the person and artist I wanted to be in those four years.

But I always felt the empty space where he should have been. I assumed at first it was just waiting for the next love to come around, but while I had found attraction, found companionship, and maybe even something close to love, there was a creeping resolute, inescapable knowledge that what I had with Oliver was something I’d never know again.

In the fall of my senior year I gave a recital of my own arrangements on Bach, including a set of variations on that organ tune I’d once teased him with, and as I took a bow and headed off the recital stage I felt the pang of longing. In the small hours of the evening with some liquid courage I wrote a letter, an overture of sorts, to the man I could no longer do without. I posted it before I could regret it, sending it to Columbia and unsure if he would respond or even receive it.

The next week I held his reply in my hand and our friendship began again. I probably loved him even then, but the mind does what it must to endure, and knowing that Oliver was lost to me by distance and marriage and later children, I found a certain happiness in myself, content to know Oliver through his writing, imagining us a modern day Jefferson and Adams but with slightly less weighty topics of discussion.  

And then he called with the news.

***

Dinner was the liveliest it had been all summer as we kept the conversation light and reminisced about Oliver’s summer here. My dad enthused about the trip to Lake Garda and I ribbed Oliver about his dancing and we all laughed as he grasped his chest in mock hurt and assured Adam that we were liars and he was a fantastic dancer in his youth. Sam ignored all of us in favor of playing with his tortellini.

Eventually the darkening sky caused the boys eyes to droop and Oliver excused himself for a moment to put them to bed, my mother following behind him carrying Sam.

When he returned twenty minutes later my dad got up to grab another bottle of wine and it was just the two of us in the twilight, holding each other’s gaze.

I reached out in a moment of bravery and squeezed his hand. That’s what friends did in moments like this, I supposed. Offered comfort.

“How are you?”

He sighed and shook his head absently, squeezing my hand back before letting it go with a stroke across my knuckles. My hand tingled as I drew it back to my lap.

“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “Okay some days, completely overwhelmed on others, and so, so angry.”

I couldn’t help myself the next question.

“Do you know why?”

His shoulders sagged and he rubbed a hand across his face.

“I knew she wasn’t particularly happy, neither of us were. We married mostly out of familial duty and it’s hard not to resent the other person for it, even if we both went in with open eyes. And after that summer…I stopped being able to pretend I was in love particularly well and she knew it.”

I swallowed my shock with a sip of wine. That was the closest we’d ever come to using that word in reference to each other. He kept going, heedless of my surprise.

“But then we got pregnant and I thought maybe things would get better, you know? She was so beautiful to me then, carrying our child, and I was so excited to become a father. It completed me in a way that I hadn’t expected and I finally felt like…like I’d found my place. But she never took to motherhood, it always seemed like a chore and I resented her for feeling that way. I hoped maybe she would settle into it. I guess she didn’t.”

He shook his head and closed his eyes, letting the evening breeze wash over him. We sat in silence for a few minutes.

“It scared me when I stopped hearing from you,” I admitted softly. 

“I just didn’t know quite what to say.”

We never really talked about her. His letters were always filled with the boys and his work and current events, sometimes the occasional story about his friends, but she only rarely got a mention by name, most of the time he just vaguely referred to “the family” and I knew he was sparing me the details.

“Reading your letters was always the highlight of my week,” he said quietly, looking down at his glass. “I’ve loved hearing about what you’re researching, or your students, or anything else you chose to share with me.”

I exhaled a soft affirmation, my chest suddenly feeling tight. “Me too. It’s always been impossible to explain to the people in my life that my best friend is a man I haven’t seen in a decade who used to sort of be my father’s student and was also my first love.”

His head whipped around sharply as his eyes met mine and my cheeks burned as I realized what I’d just admitted. I was about to blame the wine for making me too candid but he was nodding, eyes over-bright and wondering.

“Yes, me too. I always felt like however I describe that summer I’m cheapening the experience.”

“How would you describe it?” I said, before I could stop myself.

He gazed at me, flushed from the wine, exhausted from the journey and the weight of newfound single parenthood, and as beautiful as I’d ever seen him.

“It changed my life.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

My father returned with more wine and more questions about Oliver’s research, and I worked on getting my heart to stop pounding.

***

Once Oliver had disappeared upstairs for the night it was only dad and me sitting at the table, the candle almost flickering out and the sound of crickets and the trees rustling in the warm night breeze was our only soundtrack. He fixed me with a knowing gaze.

“What?”

He shook his head. “It’s just nice to see our American again, even in these circumstances.”

I suddenly felt the prickling of tears in the corners of my eyes.

“I just…what is he going to do, papa? He has no one. How could she-” I stopped and exhaled sharply, unable to even verbalize my anger toward this woman I had never met.

He sighed, reaching for his cigarettes and lighting one. “I don’t know. But he has us. And the best we can do is be present for him however we can, and give him this sanctuary while he figures out his next step. He is strong and driven and his boys are clearly the light of his life.”

I scooted my chair right next to his, feeling his arm come around my shoulders and laying my head on his with a sigh.

“I’m not sure what to do."

He pressed a comforting kiss to my curls and squeezed my shoulder.

“I hope by now you know that I will always encourage you to follow your heart.”

***

The next few days passed in a summery haze. Swims in the pool interspersed with siestas or picking apricots in the orchard or going into town to see a movie at the cinema. Adam was always perfectly content to play outside in the backyard, lost in his own world of make-believe and muttering to himself in his sing-song voice as he spun stories in his head. My parents clearly loved having children around again, since all of my cohort had grown up and moved away and no one had yet brought back a new generation of little ones to disrupt the peace.

While Adam ran around with endless energy, Sam was more likely to be found clinging to his dad or my mother, who doted on him with an affection that almost made me jealous but also made my heart ache fondly. He was no less smitten, following her on unsteady legs as she trimmed the bushes or listening raptly as she read to him in every language she knew. He was warming to me as well, mostly because playing with my hair as I bounced him on my hip provided him with endless entertainment.

But Adam was the one that unexpectedly stole my heart a few days after they arrived. I had been stealing a moment while everyone was awake and outdoors to practice some Chopin for a concert I had coming up in the fall, and I was so lost in my own concentration that I startled when Adam walked up beside me, mouth open in amazement.

“Your hands move so fast,” whispered, entranced.

“Do you like music?” I asked, patting the bench for him to join me.

He clambered up and touched the keys reverently.

“My dad plays records of piano music when he’s working,” he said, pressing experimentally on a key and looking up at me with a toothy grin when it sounded. I smiled back at him, mirroring his enthusiasm.

I held his fingers under mine in the shape of a triad and we pressed down together, sounding out the chord.

“That’s pretty,” he said, fascinated. “Teach me another.” My heart swelled.

So I spent the next half hour teaching him the names of the notes on the keyboard and attempting to explain harmony on a level that might possibly make some semblance of sense to a five year old. But he seemed to absorb every word, looking up at me with wide eyes and mimicking every gesture I made.  Half an hour later he was happily banging on a D major chord while I made up a little melody to go with it. As soon as we finished our masterpiece there was clapping from the doorway and we both turned to see Oliver giving us an ovation with a soft look on his face. He walked over and kissed Adam on his fluffy brown curls and placed a hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

“That was very beautiful.”

“Daddy I’m going to be a piano player like Elio,” Adam announced matter-of-factly, and Oliver’s grip on my shoulder tightened briefly before he let go.

“I think,” he said hoarsely, “that is an amazing idea.”

***

It took a week for the dam to break. Three nights before they were set to fly home I was sleeping fitfully on my makeshift bed in my attic hideaway and finally gave in to my insomnia around 2 A.M., kicking the sheets away and slipping quietly through the house and up the stairs to the second floor balcony to sneak a cigarette.

He started violently from his seat on the bench against the wall when I stepped out into the evening air, wide eyes fixing on mine in the faint moonlight. For a second we were suspended in time, gazing raptly at each other, and then his face crumpled and he sagged into himself, hands catching his head as a sob wracked his body.

In a second I was sitting beside him and took him in my arms, resting his head against my shoulder and caressing his cheek with one hand, the other winding around his shoulders while I buried my face in his hair. My vows to myself to keep a friendly distance were instantly broken in the face of his pain and I held him to me and shushed him gently.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered wetly after few minutes, his shaky breaths getting slightly steadier.

“It’s ok.”

“This has been so incredibly wonderful, so incredibly necessary and such a reprieve, but in three days I have to go back to a life that I am woefully unprepared for and I just –”

He inhaled sharply, fighting for control, and sat up, gazing ahead at the moonlit trees as the words spilled out.

“I can’t quit my job to look after my kids because I need the money, but it’s not enough money to hire someone full time to look after them. My mother and I barely speak and I have no other close relatives that I can reach out to. Soon my kids will stop believing my vague answers about why mommy isn’t here and I have no idea how to tell a two year old that he will never be held by his mom again. But God help me this week I’ve been happy. _So happy,_ Elio. How is it possible that the moment I got here I let all that crap go and was simply happy that for the first time in ten years I could see you, touch you, listen to your voice, and just be near you without feeling like I was breaking my wedding vows. What kind of parent am I that a part of me is overjoyed she’s gone, the bad guy, because I get to have a second chance at my own personal happiness?”

I stared at him, mute. He reached out and grasped my left hand in both of his, looking down at it.

“How – how is it that those scant few days that we were together a decade ago still stand out in my memory as the best of my life? That’s nothing, barely longer than our visit now and a blink of an eye compared to a marriage, a life. And yet I’ve thought of you every day, every moment since, Elio. And I’m so, so tired of hating myself for it. I’m sorry if it’s too much to hear and I’m sorry that I don’t know what’s going to happen next or what it means, but-”

He turned his gaze on me and with absolute truth in his eyes said, “I have loved you and will love you for the rest of my life. Always know that.”

It was so simple, after that.

“There was never going to be anyone else but you, I made my peace with that a long time ago.”

He was in my arms again in an instant and we clutched at each other, tears mingling as we both took a deep breath for the first time in ten years.

 ***

Eventually I had to break the spell we had been under and roused him gently.

“Bed I think, you need to get at least a little sleep.”

He looked up at me, head turning against my shoulder, and nodded with a small smile.

I held his face in my palms as he moved to get up and placed a kiss on each temple, remembering for a moment his similar gesture many years ago in the attic room on that old mattress. A kindness that I could finally repay.

His eyes fluttered closed he made a soft sound as I gently touched my lips to his, chaste and reverent, and his hands gently weaved through my hair.

We got up and I took the lead, grasping his hand and pulling him toward the small room that was his, going through the bathroom to the single bed illuminated by a strip of moonlight.

Not giving myself any moment of doubt I pulled the sheets back and climbed in, murmuring “get in” quietly and keeping my gaze steadily on him.

With a quiet “yes sir” and a quirk of his lips he slipped into bed beside me. We giggled softly as we tried to puzzle our two grown male bodies into a position that could work on the tiny bed, and I ended up with Oliver half on top of me, one of his arms under my head and the other across my stomach, legs entangled and his face against my neck. It was bliss.

He placed a soft kiss to my neck and whispered “thank you” with such aching sincerity that I turned and nuzzled his cheek, throat too full to say anything. With a final sigh he fell into a deep sleep and I followed him soon after.

***

I felt stirring beside me and still half in dreams reached out sleepily to pull him back to me. I felt a brief kiss to my hand but he sat up, swinging his legs off the bed.

I then heard muffled voices through the door and knew the boys must be awake. Wiping a hand across my face I opened my eyes and yawned, kicking the sheets down off my body.

Every gentle and platonic impulse from the last night vanished instantly in a cloud of lust as we locked eyes. He was standing at the foot of the bed, gazing at me transfixed. His boxers didn’t hide that he has half hard from sleep and his hair was mussed and soft. His eyes were still puffy and red from crying and he was biting the corner of his lower lip. He looked overcome.

I took an unsteady breath, mouth falling open, and realized I probably looked just as bad. Unable to resist I ran a hand down my torso and rested it gently right where his eyes were straying.

He let out a quiet “fuck,” and the sound of Oliver aroused was one I had never forgotten.

The scream of a toddler startled both of us. Oliver grasped the bed frame in frustration for a second and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to reset.

I tore my eyes away from him and swung myself off the bed, brushing a hand against him as I walked by.

“I’ll just hop in the shower.”

He groaned softly and muttered “unfair” as he opened the door to the chaos in the adjoining room.

***

My mother seemed to sense that Oliver and I were struggling to find a moment alone to talk all morning, because at lunch she loudly announced that she was taking the boys down to the river for a few hours and then stared at my father until he agreed that it was high time for a swim and wasn’t it too bad that Oliver and Elio both had to get some work done. The boys were suitably excited about that plan and so by one o’clock Oliver and I were left standing alone in the hallway as the car rattled off down the driveway.

He had me up against the wall before I could even think of my opening line, pressed together from head to toe with a hand on my back and the other cupping my chin and pulling my lips to his.

It was the strongest sense of deja-vu, the taste of him and the rasp of his cheek against mine. I felt myself swoon like my teenage self as I immediately threaded my fingers though his hair, legs going weak and mind going fuzzy with happiness.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, pulling back and running a thumb across my slick lower lip. “I know we need to talk but-“

I nodded shallowly, throwing my head back as he pressed a line of wet kisses along my jaw and trying to press my body even closer against him.

“Later.”

“ _yes,_ later.”

I grabbed his hand and marched him upstairs.

***

Afterwards I lay mostly on top of him with my head above his heart, hearing it slowly return to normal under my ear and tracing idle patterns on his chest with my hand. His arms were tight around me, hugging me tightly against him as though scared I would be ripped from him if he loosened his grip. I understood because I felt exactly the same way.

As he came back to himself I could feel the tension begin to seep back into his body. I traced my lips across his chest and pressed a series of kisses from his sternum to his swollen mouth, dipping my tongue between his parted lips for a single perfect kiss which drew out a contented sigh, before pulling back to look into his eyes, which were warm but serious.

“Talk to me,” I begged.

He brushed a curl away from my face, collecting his thoughts.

“My life’s a very, very complicated mess,” he said finally, with a sad smile. “But I can’t wait ten years for this again, I won’t survive it.”

I took a deep, steadying breath so I could say what I needed to with certainty.

“I’m done with my coursework, all I have left is my dissertation, which only requires a decent music library and some time. There are trains between New Haven and the city when I need to go back to school, but I think…maybe it’s time to make New York home.”

I finally looked back up at him and saw his eyes shining with unshed tears.

“Elio…”

I shook my head vehemently.

“No. I know what you’re going to say but Oliver I’m not the kid anymore. You knew that at seventeen I couldn’t know what I was feeling, not really, and stepped back so that I could grow up. I hated you for it then but now I understand, truly I do, and I’m so grateful for the life I’ve lived since then. But I get to have a say now too.”

I climbed into his lap as he sat up against the headboard, holding his face in my hands.

“And I want you. In my life, always. So I’m going to make that happen.”

I watched as every emotion ran across his face, finally mirroring my own giddy disbelief that we were actually having this conversation.

“It’s a lot to take on,” he said finally. “Raising two kids is no walk in the park.”

I nodded. “And I can’t bear to think of you doing it without me.”

“I love you so much.”

“Je t’aime,” I croaked, falling into him and kissing every inch of skin I could reach with an elation I hadn’t felt since _midnight._

“ich liebe dich, ti amo, I love you.”

***

We managed to look somewhat put together when my parents came back with the boys, exhausted from the sun and water, but our inability to stop the soppy looks meant my parents read everything they needed to know on our faces, and even Adam gave us a confused look or two.

Oliver took Sam upstairs for a nap and laid down with him so Adam and I headed over to the piano for some more music lessons, but I was distracted and he could tell, eventually waving a hand in front of my face to snap me from my thoughts.

“Elio are you okay?”

I nodded guiltily but I knew the next conversation needed to happen now.

“Sorry piccino, I was just thinking. Will you come sit on the couch with me?”

He nodded, looking confused. So we hopped off the piano bench and settled together on the couch where he leaned against me easily, calming my nerves a little. I decided to jump right in.

“So you know how I live in Connecticut? It’s not too far from where you live in New York.”

“Mm hmm, daddy says you go to a fancy school like Columbia.”

“Psh, it’s better than Columbia, but your dad can think what he likes.”

Adam grinned up at me with Oliver’s eyes, and I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer.

“Well anyway, I’m sort of done with school and I’ll be in New York a lot more, and I was wondering if it would be okay if I came to stay with you and Sam and your dad.”

Adam lit up with excitement. “We need to get a piano!”

***

Two days later Anchise had the car idling while the boys said slightly hysterical goodbyes to my parents, who also looked alarmingly close to tears. Oliver pulled my father into a brief but forceful hug, trying to convey his gratitude without losing his composure. My mother let a few tears fall as she stroked his cheek and promised that they would be visiting this fall for my recital and would expect to see them then.

Sam was hiccuping sadly as I kissed his cheeks and promised to see him again soon and Adam demanded to know when “soon” meant exactly. Oliver was watching our goodbyes with an arm around my mom and a loving smile. As dad got the boys into the car he came to me and I slipped my hand in his, bringing it quickly to my lips before holding it against my heart.

“Call when you get home.”

“I will.”

“ _Elio_.”

“ _Oliver_.” 


End file.
